About Son of Man

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

A blind date with the latter day saints

I jumped on a bus up at Silverstone and Martingrove and sat down beside two well-dressed men. "We're missionaries," the one closest to me said. "From Utah." Things progessed. I jumped off the bus at Dixon Road with a blind date set up for the following Tuesday night. At around 5 or 6 minutes past 8PM, the kettle was on and a plate of cookies sat on the coffee table, two young men stepped out of a late evening shower into the front hallway. "Nice place you've got here," Said the one who quite resembled Matt Damon. "Do you live here alone?"
"No," I said. "I live with my folks."
"That's great," He said.
We opened in prayer and began. We talked of our background, our families, our faith journies. Matt Damon pulled out a crisp KJV and explained that they believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. The first topic was that of the apostles. We discussed their purpose at the time of Christ and early Church and also their importance to the Church today. Ephesians 2:20 was mentioned and also 4:12. On this we agreed. I think they are intentionally vauge on the first meeting.
"We believe that God ordained that there would always be 12 apostles. " Matt Damon said. "But what happens when you take away the foundation of a house?" He paused. "It collapses."
"Indeed." I said.
He went on to say the when the apostles died, the Church's strength and unity gradually declined and eventually fell apart. He kept refering to the "perfect Church" that Christ had intended. It is this broken and scattered Church that Joseph Smith was called to reform in 1820. This includes updated scriptures, The Book of Morman, and 12 new apostles.
It was all sounding so lovely.
Though there are many dubious elements of the Morman theology, it was the very premise on which they build the entire thing that really didn't jive with me. This is, that the church is supposed to be perfect and completely unified on this earth. Now, we do have a perfect righteousness in the eyes of God and this through Jesus Christ. In this, the true church is unified (by "true" I mean someone who can say AMEN to every chapter of Romans). If the church was ever meant to be unified on every secondary matter, Romans 14 would have no need to exist. But, it does.
In true blind date fashion, once we had finished our meeting, Matt Damon asked, "So, would you like to meet again?"
"Sure," I said. We exchanged phone numbers and gave eachother some homework for next time.

Here is a little thing from Mark Driscoll on this matter.